Waste / Mine: Re Interpreting mans' connection to the landscape through the conservation of a tin mine on Devils Peak

The starting point of this study begins whilst driving through a field of vineyards just outside of Cape Town, about 15 kilometers from Napier. A sea of agricultural formlessness and sameness. This scene was interrupted by a large white blanket covering most of the hill side. It appeared ridged in its form yet fluid enough to take the shape of the landscape. The vast scale (or scale-less-ness) of the landscape became somewhat reduced to an area small enough to comprehend. This object lay seemingly foreign and unfamiliar and thus estranging my view of the landscape. This led me to question its meaning. A google earth image of the exact site fortuitously captured the assembly of this artefact. The image illustrates its agricultural use, but more interestingly its reveals a series of processes of working upon the landscape. The large seemingly monolithic object reveals its individual parts, method of assembly and human labour. Embedded within the artefact too are energies- human and mechanical- which are impossible to observe in the finished artefact. Through being able to unveil the various methods and steps of this process made richer my knowledge of the landscape and therefore, I argue, helped better understand the human connection to landscape.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Blackburn, Cameron

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13016

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13016